Day Four-The Circle Maker Prayer Challenge

Years ago I had a paradigm shift about prayer as I read something Elizabeth Elliott wrote: “Dreaming is a form of praying and praying is a form of dreaming.”

All I know is this: the more I pray the more I dream and the more I dream the more I pray.  Prayer is where holy dreams are conceived by the Spirit of God.  Prayer is a dream incubator.  And the bigger the dream the harder you have to pray!

George Washington Carver is considered of the greatest scientific minds of the twentieth century.  Around the turn of the twentieth century, the agricultural economy of the South was suffering as the boll weevil devastated cotton crops. The soil was being depleted of nutrients because farmers planted cotton year in and year out. It was George Washington Carver who introduced the concept of crop rotation. He encouraged farmers to plant peanuts and they did. The strategy revived the soil, but farmers were frustrated because there was no market for peanuts. Their abundant peanut crop rotted in warehouses. When they complained to Carver, he did what he had always done. Carver prayed about it.

Carver routinely got up at 4 AM, walked through the woods, and asked God to reveal the mysteries of nature. He circled Job 12:7-8: Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will teach you;or speak to the earth, and it will teach you. Carver literally asked God to reveal the mysteries of nature. And God did.

In Carver’s own words:

I said, “Lord, why did you make the universe?”

The Lord replied, “Ask for something more in proportion to that little mind of yours.”

“Then why did you make the earth, Lord?” I asked.

“Your little mind still wants to know far too much,” replied God.

“Why did you make man, Lord?” I asked.

“Far too much. Far too much. Ask again,” replied God.

“Explain to me why you made plants, Lord,” I asked.

“Your little mind still wants to know far too much.”

So I meekly asked, “Lord, why did you make the peanut?”

And the Lord said, “For the modest proportions of your mind, I will grant you the mystery of the peanut. Take it inside your laboratory and separate it into water, fats, oils, gums, resins, sugars, starches and amino acids. Then recombine these under my three laws of compatibility, temperature and pressure. Then you will know why I made the peanut.”

On January 20, 1921, George Washington Carver testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on behalf of the United Peanut Association of America. The chairman, Joseph Fordney of Michigan, told him he had ten minutes. An hour and forty minutes later, the committee told George Washington Carver he could come back anytime he wanted. Carver mesmerized the committee by demonstrating dozens of uses for the peanut. In the end Carver discovered more than three hundred uses for the peanut. Or maybe more accurately, the Lord revealed more than three hundred uses. They included everything from glue to shaving cream to soap to insecticide to cosmetics to wood stains to fertilizer to linoleum to the secret sauce in Batterson burgers: worcestershire sauce.

So the next time you shave or put on makeup, the next time you stain the deck or fertilize your garden, the next time you enjoy a good old-fashioned PBJ, remember that all of those things trace back to a man who had a habit of prayer at 4 AM.  They weren’t good ideas. They were God ideas.  His praying led to dreaming. And his dreaming led to worcestershire sauce!